Miss Bacall is 100% correct concerning the 'scientologist'.
Posted on 08/03/2005 12:58:14 AM PDT by BigSkyFreeper
Lauren Bacall has attacked Tom Cruise as 'shocking, vulgar and sick' for exploiting his private life to sell his movies.
The 81-year-old Hollywood legend also poured scorn on his acting abilities.
Miss Bacall spoke of her distaste at Cruise's publicising of his relationship with fiancèe Katie Holmes, which conveniently coincided with the launch of his latest film War Of The Worlds.
(Excerpt) Read more at thisislondon.co.uk ...
Bravo for Lauren Bacall! Telling it like it is.
Yeah, it's not like she's ever exploited her relationship with Bogie, ever.
And look at what he's done with his education, and she with hers. I don't know about you, but Cruise has done more with his limited talents than Shields has her degree.
I don't get the defense of Shields, and her whole victim pose. She put out a book exploiting her post-partum depression, and Cruise voiced his opinion on it. Stupid as his opinion may be, why is she a victim because someone actually acknowledge her dopey book and said something about it?
"Yeah, it's not like she's ever exploited her relationship with Bogie, ever."
I have issues with Bacall for allowing herself to be taken in and used by the Hollyweird branch of the CPUSSR, but in all fairness:
She and Bogie fell in love, got married, and stayed married without scandal until death parted them. They tried to keep their private life private. It was the studio and the media that exploited "Bogie's Baby."
"Stupid as his opinion may be, why is she a victim because someone actually acknowledge her dopey book and said something about it?"
My impression is that, rather than presenting herself as victim, she took exception to Cruise's remarks on the use of anti-depressant drugs and psychiatry.
She believes that these things helped her and can help others, and that Cruise's crackpot Scientology position might influence depressed people not to get help that is available.
And she has a point. There has always been a reluctance to admit that one needs help, and to incur the stigma of being a "psychiatric patient." Anti-depressant drugs are one of the few things in psychiatry I approve of, because they can at least get people over a suicidal patch.
Time heals all wounds, but not if you kill yourself before it has a chance.
Which she willingly participated in. And since she and Bogie married within days of Bogart's divorce, I find it hard to see her as some paragon of virtues.
I don't dislike her at all, and her private life is her private life, but she's no babe in the woods. She had no objections that I know of to her personal life being exploited for fame just as she is complaining Cruise does. THAt is my only problem with her--pot calling a kettle black.
She used the opportunity to get more interviews about her book, which was dead as far as sales go. And what little I saw, she was portraying herself as a victim.
She believes that these things helped her and can help others, and that Cruise's crackpot Scientology position might influence depressed people not to get help that is available. And she has a point. There has always been a reluctance to admit that one needs help, and to incur the stigma of being a "psychiatric patient." Anti-depressant drugs are one of the few things in psychiatry I approve of, because they can at least get people over a suicidal patch. Time heals all wounds, but not if you kill yourself before it has a chance.
Since when, though, is an opposing view that might "influence" people such a bad thing? I happen to agree on certain drug treatments, but does that mean all debate is done? No. Cruise has his point of view; the reason we enforce the right to free speech is not so people are safe to say "I like everything!" but to say things that are "controversial" or stupid.
I resent Tom Cruise for putting me in the position where I have to sort of defend him! :) BUT, the hysteria that greeted his saying "I don't like drug and psychiatric treatment" has been greeted with such lunatic thinking--now we're supposed to shut up because the medical world says you might convince someone not to seek a certain type of treatment? OK--so much for my pro-life position.
Bacall, Class act
Just ask Julia Roberts. ;) I have no idea what you mean by "easy consistant career"--Cruise's staying on top for twenty years is easy? Says who? It's got little to do with gender--how many other stars who had their first big hit in 1983 or so are consistently in the top 3 of stars today? Cruise is a star because of his talent and his choices. It's not a great talent, to me, but he's put himself in movies appropriate to what he can do. If that's easy, what am I doing in Boston?
Shields was NEVER a big movie star--she was a model and celebrity. She's never had a single hit up there with Cruise's. So she wasn't a big star who lost it because of her gender--she was a celeb.
I admire the many trips she took to support our troops. How many trips to the troops has Tom been on?
I'm only familiar with one or two, but that's not the issue--are we going to run to that as proof of the completely separate discussion underway? I'm not a fan of either of these people, so if you're trying to say she's great and he's not, as a person, have fun, I couldn't care less. That's not the point, though.
The only downside to Brooke is she seems to have slept all over Hollywood while married to Andre Agassi and just tour up his hear over this. Luckily, Andre married Graf who is a real nice lady.
Don't know or care about her personal life. I just find her attempt to get some PR out of this laughable.
I have a friend who works as Julia Roberts assistant.
Julia is a rare actress. She is not like the others.
For some reason people like her toothy grin and same personality reading different scripts.
Cruise is a star because he has talent and used to be protected by the people he fired and replaced with his relatives. Now that he isn't being protected, he's in all kinds of trouble being himself.
Miss Bacall is 100% correct concerning the 'scientologist'.
" She had no objections that I know of to her personal life being exploited for fame just as she is complaining Cruise does."
I'm not an authority on Bacall's life, but my impression is that her behavior has expressed just such an objection. She has always been quite a private person.
For instance, I cannot recall a single media circus involving her and some "boyfriend" in all the years since Bogie died.
Given 'em hell Bacall!
"She used the opportunity to get more interviews about her book, which was dead as far as sales go. And what little I saw, she was portraying herself as a victim."
Well, maybe you're right. All I know is what I've read on the Internet.
"Since when, though, is an opposing view that might "influence" people such a bad thing?"
This is a fundamental philosophical point that I have not been able to articulate correctly.
Constitutionally, the US holds that everyone is free to express his opinions. However, there is also a moral dimension to this.
There is a tension between the Constitutional right to freedom of speech and the moral concept that error has no rights.
Taking freedom of speech to an extreme, we would find ourselves required to allow Muslim private schools that preach terrorism to grades 1-12. I think most Americans would agree that freedom of speech stops at some point short of that.
Cruise is preaching the nonsense of a cult invented by a cynical science-fiction writer. It claims the status of a religion, but is it? And a good deal of that nonsense is quite harmful, such as his claim that depressed people should not seek psychiatric help.
To return to your question, "Since when, though, is an opposing view that might "influence" people such a bad thing?", the answer is, "When that view might influence people to become crazed whackos like Cruise." Or perhaps, "When that view might turn a young person into a leftist." Looked at from a moral standpoint, proselytizing error is always a bad thing.
"Cruise has his point of view; the reason we enforce the right to free speech is not so people are safe to say "I like everything!" but to say things that are "controversial" or stupid."
Freedom of speech may require us to allow people like Cruise to speak, but it does not require us to take them seriously. If freedom of speech protects Cruise, it also allows others to say that his opinions are boneheaded idiocy. More than that, it allows them to say that he is morally reprehensible for going around preaching such idiocy.
"now we're supposed to shut up because the medical world says you might convince someone not to seek a certain type of treatment?"
From a moral standpoint, yes: he should stop going around spreading that idiocy. However, if he decides to exercise his constitutional right to spread idiocy, I will defend the right of others to call him a cultist loony.
"Don't know or care about her personal life. I just find her attempt to get some PR out of this laughable."
Well, hey, Cruise fired first. She's not supposed to shoot back?
"Don't know or care about her personal life. I just find her attempt to get some PR out of this laughable."
Well, hey, Cruise fired first. She's not supposed to shoot back?
"We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall."
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